Brooke and Brunei
On Brooke’s arrival in 1839, Brunei was a decayed empire stretching the whole northwest coast of Borneo. In some rivers, pirate communities had been established. Pangerans at the capital of Brunei played politics. In other rivers, such as the Saribas and the Skrang, Arab adventurers and Brunei chiefs encouraged the local Dyak tribes to take up piracy, acquiring wealth and power. The trade of Singapore expanded the profits of piracy. In the early 1830s, the Brunei Sultan sent people down to Sarawak to explore the antimony and gold trade. First, Makhota arrived and then Rajah Muda Hassim came to deal with the rebellion that Makhota had created.
Brooke aimed to deal not only with piracy but to introduce the British system of taxation and traditional trade. Piracy was to be suppressed, and taxes were levied in the European fashion. He planned to carry out these reforms when he replaced Makhota in 1842 in the Lundu, Sarawak and Samarahan rivers. In other rivers, it would be carried by a new Brunei government run by Hassim and his half brother Budrud’in. The British government would assist in providing Naval Forces and acquiring Labuan or Balambangan as a coaling station, naval base and commercial centre.
The European policy was bound to meet opposition from the entrenched chiefs, commercial traders and jealous aristocrats. Brooke received some support from the British government, but the assistance collapsed in 1846 when a revolution in Brunei caused Hassim and Budrud’in to commit suicide.
The British acquired Labuan as a colony and told Brooke to negotiate a commercial treaty with Brunei in 1847. The treaty included protecting trade with British subjects, allowing for the appointment of a British Counsel and suppressing piracy. These reforms of Brunei failed. Now Sarawak had to participate in the suppression of piracy and bring stability to the Brunei rivers.
Britain began a new policy where it aimed to disapprove of Sarawak and, with the proceeding at Batu Maru in 1849, to start the appointment of a commission of enquiry in 1853. From about 1849, Brooke received little naval support, and the Foreign Office wanted to restrict Brooke to the suppression of piracy.
Brooke’s efforts to reform the rivers of Brunei had failed as the Brunei aristocracy wanted their commercial control over the rivers. The people of Brunei also disliked the settlement at Labuan, where free trade and a haven for escaped enslaved people flourished. The inhabitants of the entire coast were prohibited from trading with Labuan. Brooke then diverted his attention to the southern rivers.
Makhota dominated the Government of Brunei, now Shabandar, and exerted a powerful influence over the new Sultan Abdul Mumein.
The policy of the British government at Labuan was to limit the powers of the Chiefs along the rivers in favour of the Chinese traders from Labuan. The plan was to educate the native chiefs in English commercial practices, such as trading with the Chinese, rather than violently replacing them.
Makhota was murdered in 1858 by some Bisayan chiefs from the interior, whose daughters he had seized. St. John also felt he could suppress the interior tribes by using the Chinese. Replaced by G.W.Edwards, he upheld the cause against Sarawak influence at the time of the Sarawak blockade of Mukah in 1859. (Edwards continued his opposition to Brooke and confirmed reports that Brooke was “in great disgrace with the Queen”.)
John Pope-Hennessey, a successor to Edwards, paid attention to the Singapore Chinese who had come to Labuan to trade. In 1867, he received a group led by Lee Cheng Ho, an opium farmer and others. He granted them acres of land for a schoolhouse, a joss house, and an extension of the Chinese graveyard which was filled with relatives killed in Brunei, Kalias, Mempakul and elsewhere. He attempted to expand the trade of the Chinese in Labuan. For instance, in 1869, he heard that Pangiran Mumein was trying to extract “resents” from two Chinese traders. The Sultan tried and punished the Pangeran, banishing him for life from Mempakul and making Choa Mah Soo Captain China in Kalias and Mempakul. In 1849, a gunboat Captain and an officer of the Sultan were executed by Pdas Damit.
The British policy was one of regulating the trade of the Brunei Chiefs in favour of the visiting Singapore Chinese. In the rivers controlled by Sarawak, Brooke had pensioned off the Brunei aristocracy. The removal of the Sarawak Raj, with its opposition to rapid expansion, was later led to the emergence of the Chinese.
From
Sir James Brooke and Brunei Nicholas Tarling Sarawak Museum Journal December 1963
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